How Xerox handles virtual presentations

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Challenge: Slashed travel budgets made it difficult for Xerox Corp. employees to attended necessary training classes and for Xerox channel partners to meet with the company. Xerox wanted an on-demand alternative, one that solved both problems, while creating lead-gen opportunities and new b-to-b channels.

Solution: Xerox had been a customer of Brainshark Inc.'s online, on-demand presentation services since 2006, when it created 25 product demonstrations, said Scott Titus, iGen program manager at Xerox. The presentations were well-received, so in 2009 Xerox created more—3,000 to be exact. The purpose of the added presentations expanded to train employees, educate channel partners and market Xerox products. The presentations included slides, audio narration, customer testimonials and interactive pieces. To date, some 2,000 Xerox employees hold accounts with Brainshark. Delivering all this important content virtually has saved Xerox serious time and money.

“Every month for training, we'd be running 20 [live] sessions … or 60 sessions per quarter,” said Laura Ziccarelli, manager of conferencing and value chain partner engagement at Xerox. “Now, we're down to two sessions per quarter and we supplement the rest with Brainshark presentations.”

Brainshark's online services were appealing not just because they maximized the use of Xerox employees' time, Ziccarelli and Titus said. The tracking capabilities Brainshark offers—allowing a content creator to know who viewed when presentations when—is extremely valuable to Xerox, whether the productions were meant to teach, market or sell.

“Products fit different verticals, and I now know which customers are interested in which topics based on which Brainshark topics they watched,” Titus said. “It significantly decreases my sales cycle.”

To maximize lead-gen, Xerox also controls the information required by viewer log-ins. Spots for first and last name and an e-mail address are favored by Titus, but if another department in the company wants to create a presentation, Titus said they can opt for the viewer to provide additional items, like company name and phone number.

For training, incentives like rewarding the first 20 viewers is one way Xerox ensures the information is being watched and absorbed, Ziccarelli said.

Results: When the professional services group within Xerox implemented Brainshark presentations, they reduced training time and effort by 90%. Titus said the company as a whole has saved uncountable hours of time in the 125,000 hours of content they created through Brainshark because the presentations can be streamed over and over again. In addition, switching to on-demand saved Xerox valuable dollars because the company no longer has to foot the bill for pricey phone calls and travel.

“Brainshark is helping companies share tailored, relevant, engaging content with the people they need to reach and provide that content on demand, in the many places and ways that their audience wants to consume it—all in a scalable and measurable way,” said Brainshark CEO Joe Gustafson.

In the weeks ahead, Xerox plans to further the use of Brainshark's services, starting a joint venture between Xerox and Fujifilm USA to use the on-demand services to invite people to their webinars. Xerox hopes integrating Brainshark will help it attract viewers, increasing the 1,000 or so attendees it already draws to each webinar.